This dissertation focused on exploring doctoral students conceptions of the scholarly community and research, and further, on analysing the relation between these conceptions and well-being as well as study persistence in the doctoral process. The first two studies concentrated on analysing students conceptions of the scholarly community and their meaning with respect to one s own thesis process. The last two studies focused on students conceptions of the personal meaning of the thesis work and conceptions of research in the context of their own doctoral journeys. The data were collected by surveys and interviews. Altogether 669 students from different disciplines participated in the surveys and 32 in the interviews. The analysis was conducted by combining both qualitative and quantitative methods.